Grab The Games: Battle Worlds: Kronos

Battle Worlds Kronos is yet another example of old-school gaming revival, an example that shows that those trusted formulas are as compelling now as ever. In this case it is mostly inspired by Battle Isle series, a series that had 4 main games and ended, when the last part tried to abandon the core elements of its gameplay. Thankfully those who still remembered it fondly backed up the kickstarter project and Battle Worlds Kronos was born.

Our forces managed to engage a part of the enemy force without dealing with them all.

While the game uses a nice looking 3D engine, it employs an isometric view, perfect for showing the position of units on a hexagonal map. We tend to call this genre strategy games, but truth be told, Kronos is more of a tactical game. Yes, you make from time to time choices closer to strategic scale, but most of the gameplay is about maneuvering units and using their abilities to the fullest. And this is where the game shines, there are better games depicting positioning aspect of warfare, but Kronos is superb at showing how different units are. Of course they have different stats, like HP, damage, armour, but the biggest difference lies in the actions system. Each unit has two actions it can perform during a given turn. A heavy tank will have movement and attack, an infantry unit movement and joker (an action that can be used either for moving or attacking), so when it forgoes combat it can move twice, a fast recon unit may have two joker actions, so it can take two moves, two attacks or a move and an attack during a turn. This simple system means each unit type is unique and has it best uses. Add to that special abilities (like capturing structures, placing mines) and experience levels (with the player choosing the benefits each time) and you have a lot of differences between the units under your command. Knowing these and using them correctly will decide whether you win or lose. The AI is not brilliant, but it is very competent and very often enjoys numerical advantage so you do have to think, not only about using your units correctly but identifying the importance of objectives.

When zoomed out the game displays a 2d version of the map, perfect for seeing an overview of the battle.

There are structures that can produce and repair units, but they are never too numerous and they have limited resources, which means every use is something you need to carefully consider. The game is challenging, sometimes in a clear way, but sometimes using tricks like spawning a new enemy army when you were sure of your victory. And here we have an interesting alternative to the difficulty system. To put it simply the game does not have a traditional difficulty system, there is only one difficulty level (which does not mean it is easy), if you find the game too hard then periodically you can call reinforcements. On one hand this is an elegant solution, you use it only if things get really tough and personally I found it felt so much like a cheat that I did my best not to use it at all. Trouble is if you find the game too easy tough luck, there is nothing you can do, other than employ some houserules. All in all an interesting experiment but I'd rather have a traditional difficulty system.

One of the game's few factories, albeit low on resources (these can be transferred from other points using special vehicles)

The game's presentation is really good for a game of this type, while remaining clean and unobtrusive. The same could be said about the music. The storyline is presented mostly through dialogues appearing during missions, giving you sometimes a choice of responses.

While it is not badly written it is not particularly original and most of the time I was clicking through it to come back to fighting. Which may not be solely the fault of the dialogue but rather the result of how good the fighting is. The game has everything you might want from a strategy game, careful planning of the attack, its execution where every move matters, achieving victory when defeat seemed unavoidable, the elusive one more turn factor, but also the freedom of putting the game away for a time and coming back to it without the feeling that you do not know what is going on... It uses simple systems, but so well designed that it has a lot of depth, it is, without a doubt, one of the better turn-based games out there.

Mikolaj W.